


Veil of Tears

by yarroway



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, F/M, Halloween, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-27 05:50:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5036236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yarroway/pseuds/yarroway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wilson is in an unhappy relationship with Sam when Amber reappears to take back her own.  A ghost story for Halloween.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Veil of Tears

_October 28_

On Thursday evening Wilson steps out of PPTH into the parking lot. The October wind runs cold fingers through his hair.

Wilson turns up his collar. The wind gusts, dies, gusts again, moaning and whistling through the trees. Funny, it almost sounds like someone calling his name. He laughs. If he's imagining the sound of his name in the wind and leaves, that's a pretty good sign that it's time to go home.

 

_October 29_

On Friday morning Wilson gets up before Sam. He anticipates costumed children being brought into the clinic for tummy aches after their school Halloween parties. He intends to wear an older pair of shoes and keep his lab coat buttoned, just in case.

He goes into the kitchen to grab a muffin. The smell of coffee greets him. He had no idea their new machine had a timer and auto brew function, and as he sips he makes a mental note to thank Sam later for setting it up for him. By the time he gets to his car, he's already forgotten.

A bus passes, turning left. A blonde woman is sitting at a window and for one heart-stopping moment he sees Amber.

It's happened before, mostly right after she died, but still every so often he glimpses someone he thinks is her and the loss hits him all over again. It used to happen a lot with busses. Wilson used to imagine that her spirit rode them around the city trying to find its way home.

With a shock Wilson realizes that it's been months since he thought of Amber. It seems disloyal to forget her, to go weeks at a stretch and not be aware of her loss, her absence. Wilson decides to visit her grave. He's not sure when, exactly, because he can't take Sam with him. He'll have to wait until she has a night out with her friends, and then he can steal away to the cemetery. He'll bring Amber flowers and sit on her grave and talk to her like he used to before Sam's presence made that impossible.

**********

When Wilson arrives at the hospital he heads to the Oncology wing to check in on a few patients before morning rounds. An hour and a half later he stands at his office door. Wilson enters, hoping for a few minutes of peace. He takes one look at his desk and sighs.

Apparently House was bored last night. Wilson's yellow sticky pad has been completely dismembered. House has spelled out HELLO in blank little stickies and has flung the rest around at random. Still, the prank barely registers on the scale of Houseness, and soon the mess all cleaned up.

**********

When Wilson gets home that night Sam wants to go out to dinner. He tells her no. He has had chills off and on all day. Sam regards him, her hands against his face, her expression annoyed. They were supposed to meet colleagues for dinner, she's rescheduled once already, and Wilson doesn't have a fever. Sam doesn't do petulant but she does throw a mean tantrum. Wilson caves before she can really get going.

As Sam drives them to the restaurant Wilson watches out the window, wondering if his life would have ever been like this with Amber. Maybe it's for the best that he never found out.

 

_October 30_

Saturday passes normally. He and Sam spend the afternoon at an art gallery, then go to a café for cappuccinos. Wilson laughs while she mocks the artist's fascination with his own penis. Later, at home, she pulls him to the sofa and nibbles at his throat with soft, hungry kisses. Wilson is achingly hard, but her hands are too large and her hair is too short, and after a few minutes he pulls away. He claims not to feel well, and she frowns.

"It must be allergies," she says, because Wilson still doesn't have a fever. It's a stupid diagnosis since allergies don’t cause chills, but Wilson is grateful for the respite and doesn't argue. He naps on the couch while Sam putters about and eventually tells him she's going shopping with her friend, Christine.

**********

House calls shortly after Sam has left. He's asking a question about splenomegaly in the absence of cancer markers, and Wilson's trying to remember the answer when House demands Wilson head to the hospital to run the differential with his team. Suddenly the lights dim and the phone goes dead.

Wilson tries to call House back on his cell, but the power surge, or whatever it had been, has killed it, too.

It takes only a few minutes for Wilson to decide to go to PPTH anyway. It's not like he has anything else to do and the case sounds interesting. Sam won't be happy, but he'll probably be back before she is.

In the end, Wilson crawls home at four in the morning. He has a new patient on his caseload, and she'll live. Sam, when he finally called her, wasn't happy but she blamed House for dragging Wilson out when he was sick, and Wilson did not disabuse her of this notion.

 

_October 31_

On Sunday Wilson sleeps until noon. Then his brother calls to remind him that he promised to take his niece and nephew to the Halloween parade this year. He isn't sure he remembers making any such commitment, but he can hear them in the background clamoring for him and he can't say no.

Sam doesn't like preteens, doesn't want to go to the parade, and doesn't have a costume. She cannot, she insists, take his brother's kids to a Halloween parade if she isn't in costume.

Wilson knows his cue when he hears it. He finds a costume store and takes Sam there. She soon settles on a policewoman outfit. Wilson is considering a long crushed velvet vampire cape and plastic fangs when Sam finds a dog outfit and declares it adorable. The next thing Wilson knows he hears himself asking if he should try the costume on and from there it’s a lost cause. Wilson is a brown dog with dangling ears and a black furry patch on his belly. Sam rubs it.

The parade is fun, and Wilson would really be enjoying himself if his niece would stop singing Hannah Montana songs and his costume weren't so itchy. His nephew is dressed as a bad guy from some movie or comic that Wilson has never heard of and he keeps taunting Sam to arrest him. So she chases him in circles and they both end up, laughing and breathless, back where they began.

Later Wilson takes them home, their treat bags full, and gets sticky kisses from them and a handshake from his brother.

Sam tousles his long, floppy ears. When they get back she helps him out of his costume. She keeps hers on. This time, when she kisses him, Wilson kisses back.

**********

Wilson listens to Sam snore. He looks out the bedroom window wondering why, if it had been such a good day, he feels so empty inside. On the heels of that thought he falls asleep.

"James," Amber calls, and her smile is a shining beacon. Wilson throws his arms around her. She's just a dream-- she's got to be a dream--but he is so incredibly glad to see her that it doesn't matter at all.

"God, I missed you," he says, holding her tight. He doesn't want to wake up. He doesn’t want to lose her again.

"Did you?" she asks, and her voice is low, sultry and dangerous. "What happened to forever?"

"We had forever," Wilson says, pressing her hand to his heart. "It didn't last as long as we wanted."

Amber snatches her hand away. "And that's it?" she asks. "I _died_ for you, and that's it? I lose? It's not even two years later and you already have another home and another blonde!" She takes a step away from him, looking miserable. "Did you ever really love me at all?"

She sounds so sad that Wilson thinks his heart might break all over again. "I'm sorry," he says. "I do love you. I always did. I miss you so much--" Wilson voice catches, and he's on his knees with no memory of how he got there. Amber kneels beside him and twines her arms around him as he gasps, "I miss you, I miss you," like a mantra.

"I miss you too," she says, calmly now. She cradles his head to her breast and tells him everything is going to be all right.

Amber lays him down on the bed that's appeared beneath him, the way things will just suddenly be there in dreams. She sits on top of him, leaning down, her hair a golden veil falling around him, curtaining out the world, keeping them safe. She kisses him deeply, again and again, and Wilson moans. His hands remember the curve of her breast, the dip of her spine.

He's inside her now, and she's riding him the way she used to, doing that thing to his ear, and he's thrusting helplessly up into her, forever into her, trying to reach her again, to get to the one spot that makes her shudder and scream and then she bends down and whispers, "Stay."

"Yes," he says, thrusting again. He grabs her roughly to hold her still. It's building inside him, deep inside him.

"Stay," she urges again, and starts to writhe.

White hot pleasure burns through Wilson. He'd forgotten how good she was at this. "Yes," he says. "Yes!"

She stops.

Wilson sobs in frustration. He's still jerking into her, can't stop even though it's nothing like it was, like what they had. He can't stop.

Amber looks down at him with a slow, knowing smile. "You belong to me," she says. "You're mine."

"Yes."

"Say it," she urges, and moves her hips, and clenches. Wilson gasps out a chorus of I love yous as he surges into her again and again, caught in her grip. He never wants this to end but he thinks he'll die if he doesn't come. His orgasm swells, he's shaking, every muscle yearning to be within her, reaching, aching. He comes in waves, pouring himself deep inside her.

Amber leans down over him, her face close against his, her palms pressing against his shoulders and her thighs clamped over his hips. "I don't like to lose," she says, as he falls slowly into sweet dark oblivion.

 

_November 1_

Sam wakes to the sound of the alarm. Beside her James is sleeping, breathing heavily. She rubs his shoulder a little to wake him and then heads to the bathroom. When she comes out he is still asleep. She frowns and shakes him. She calls his name loud, louder.

James' eyes roll open. They are yellowish white, as if cataracts had formed overnight, occluding his sight, hiding the world from James and James from the world.

Sam calls House in hysterics, but it's far, far too late.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: House, M.D. belongs to Heel & Toe Films, ShoreZ Productions, Bad Hat Harry Productions, and Universal Media Studios. I'm not making any money from this.
> 
> Thanks: to Srsly_yes for a fast and marvellous beta


End file.
